Nice work John Peterson .. For clarity you are using a Linux distro or G-Parted? Also if you could share your backup scenario with GPT disks would be an added bonus to your thread
Thanks! This is from a Debian/Ubuntu live boot. The same as with MBR disks. I do a "sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/sdb/sda.image" copy of the MBR disk (to be converted to a GPT disk) to an external USB disk from a Debian/Ubuntu live boot. In VMware I do a "sudo dd if=/mnt/sdb/sda.image of=/dev/sdc" with the image and test the operation on sdc in VMware. For safety I also make a copy from an Acronis boot disk (if there would be a problem with the dd image) to an external USB disk, and a "robocopy C:\ D:\c.image /mir /r:0 /xj" of all files while in Windows with C: as system disk (if both images would fail then at least the files are there, except the system files that robocopy can't copy).
There's a much easier method for this on Win7. Boot to win7 dvd. Shift-f10 for console Diskpart List Disk Select Disk 1 (or whatever your main disk is) clean convert gpt exit exit Then install to the unpartitioned drive.